“Ye were tryin’ from the outside.” Ava’s eyes didn’t leave Esther. “She needed someone to come in. Ye made it possible for someone to come in. That’s nae nothin’, Noah.”
He considered arguing the distinction. He didn’t.
“Thank ye,” he said instead.
Ava turned and looked at him then, and her expression did something brief and complicated that he didn’t have a name for. Surprise, maybe, or something quieter than surprise.
Then she smiled. Not the careful, controlled smile she wore when navigating something. The real one, the kind that reached her eyes before she’d decided to let it.
He looked at it a moment longer than he should have. He had seen it twice before. That specific smile—unguarded and quick—and both times he had filed it away without questioning why.
He was examining it now, briefly and against his better judgment, and what he discovered was that he wanted to see it again. That he was already, unintentionally, thinking about what it would take.
He looked back at the water.
“Ye’re welcome,” she said. And then looked back at Esther.
Ava’s hands were still warm from the honey jar when Esther fell down.
Esther moved further along the bank, chasing the point where the stones transitioned to grass, and then her foot hit the wrong rock at the wrong angle, causing her to go sideways with a sound that wasn’t quite a cry.
Noah moved before Ava fully processed what she had seen. He covered the distance in four strides, dropped to one knee beside Esther, and had his hands on her in the same motion. Checking carefully, he ran a quick, practiced assessment over her arms, knees, and the twisted ankle.
“Are ye hurt?” His voice was low.
Esther’s face was scrunched tight against tears that hadn’t decided yet whether to fall. “M-me knee,” she managed.
“Let me see.” He pushed the hem of her skirt back gently, checked the scraped skin. “Nae deep. It’ll sting for a bit, and then it’ll feel better.” He sat back on his heel. “Ye’re a brave lass, aye?”
Esther looked at her knee, then at him, and then reached for him.
It was the smallest gesture. Both arms going up, the universal language of a child who needed to be held.
Ava watched Noah go very still for just a fraction of a second, the way a man does when something catches him off guard in a part of himself he’d thought was defended. Then he gathered her up.
Esther pressed her face into his neck and sniffled, and he said nothing, just held on.
She trusts him.She’s terrified of disappointin’ him, and she trusts him completely. She kens he’ll catch her.
Ava remained in place, a few feet back, and sensed a shift in her chest like the slow, unstoppable pull of a tide.
She had been telling herself a simple, honest story for weeks now. She was here for Esther. She cared about Esther. Every feeling she experienced in this castle—every warmth, confusion, and inconvenient awareness—could be seen as a woman whohad found a child worth fighting for and a household she wanted to belong to.
It was a good story. It had held up well.
But watching Noah hold his niece in the morning sun by the edge of the loch, his jaw pressed against her hair, his shoulders relaxing from the tense posture they’d kept all the way from the castle. Watching him be, without armor, simply a man who loved a small girl and hadn’t quite figured out how to show it until someone came and made it easier, changed it all.
Why are ye so determined?
The question she’d asked herself in Caitlin’s company surfaced again, quiet and unwelcome.
Ye’ve gone further than the job asks. Further than Esther needs.
For who?
She knew the answer. She had known it for longer than she was willing to look at it directly, which is why she had been so careful not to.
Ye’re nae built for this life, Ava Harris.Ye’re nae a lady. Ye cannae be what this requires. And wantin’ something doesnae make ye fit for it, no matter how much ye?—
